Christ our Savior

For years, I related to God as though his acceptance of me rose and fell with how well I was doing. I believed true things about Jesus, but I still lived with the feeling that I was falling short.

Coming to understand Christ as my Savior has been a slow, deep unpacking of grace. I needed more than a better religious performance. I needed Jesus to do for me what I could never do for myself.

I write from within the Christian and Missionary Alliance, where we often speak of Jesus as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. These four descriptions belong together. For me, everything begins with Christ our Savior.

What do Christians mean by being saved?

Salvation means rescue. In Christian faith, it concerns rescue from sin and its consequences, and restoration to life with God. Sin includes the wrong we do, but also the deeper turning away from God that shapes our desires, choices, and relationships.

The Bible begins by describing human beings as made in God’s image. I understand that to mean we have dignity, purpose, and responsibility. We were made for relationship with God, to reflect his character, and to care for his creation. That dignity matters even when we fail badly.

Genesis 3 describes humanity’s disobedience, and Paul takes up the consequences in Romans 5. Christians call this the Fall: the rupture brought by human rebellion against God. My conviction is that we are sinners by nature and by choice: sin affects us inwardly as well as in the wrong we do. It reaches deeper than occasional mistakes.

That is why I take the need for a Savior seriously. Better teaching and greater effort can help with many problems. They cannot, by themselves, restore the relationship with God that sin has broken. In Ephesians 2:1–10, Paul describes people being brought from spiritual death to life through God’s mercy.

Judgment, dignity, and hope

I believe our choices matter before God and that his judgment is real. The Alliance teaches everlasting judgment for those who remain unrepentant and apart from Christ. That is a serious conviction, and I do not want to make it sound less serious than it is.

Repentance means turning toward God and away from sin. It involves a change of direction, rather than simply feeling bad about something. The biblical warning about judgment asks us to face what sin does and our accountability to the God who made us.

But judgment is not the whole of the biblical message. John 3:16 speaks of God’s love in giving his Son so that those who believe may have eternal life. Revelation 21:1–5 describes the hope of renewed creation, where death and grief no longer have the final word.

Christians disagree about how to understand the biblical language of final punishment. My own conviction belongs within the traditional Alliance understanding. Compare the arguments about final judgment, including eternal punishment, final destruction, and the hope some Christians hold for universal restoration.

What happened at the cross?

Atonement is the word Christians use for how Jesus’ death deals with sin and brings us into a restored relationship with God. Reconciliation means the repair of a relationship that has been broken.

I understand the cross as part of God’s purpose to rescue humanity, rather than an emergency response to something he had failed to foresee. I also believe Jesus died in our place. He bore the judgment we deserve so that we could receive forgiveness and life we could not earn.

That understanding draws on passages such as Isaiah 53, 2 Corinthians 5:18–21, and 1 Peter 3:18. They speak of suffering for others, the exchange of sin and righteousness, and Christ bringing people to God.

Romans 3:21–26 is especially important to me. Paul connects God’s justice with his action to put people right through Jesus. The cross holds together God’s holiness, love, justice, and mercy. Forgiveness does not make evil unimportant.

The purpose reaches beyond the removal of guilt. Romans 5:8–11 speaks of reconciliation, and Colossians 1:19–22 describes peace made through the cross. Salvation brings us into relationship with the living Christ.

Christians use several biblical images to explain this work. My emphasis on Jesus bearing judgment is often called penal substitution. Other accounts emphasize victory over evil, healing, sacrifice, or the restoration of human nature. These explanations sometimes overlap and sometimes disagree. Explore the fuller arguments about how Jesus’ death brings salvation →

A gift received through trust

I believe salvation has been provided through Jesus for all people. I also believe that its benefits are received through repentance and faith. Faith, in this setting, means trusting Christ, rather than merely accepting a set of religious facts.

First John 2:2 speaks of Christ’s sacrifice in relation to the whole world. John 1:12 speaks of receiving him. These passages help explain my conviction that the invitation is open and that a response matters. Christians differ about God’s choosing, human response, and the extent of the atonement. Compare the understandings of God’s initiative and our response.

Grace means God’s freely given favor. Ephesians 2:8–10 places salvation within that gift and then describes a life of good works that grows from it. Titus 3:4–7 likewise grounds rescue in God’s mercy.

That challenges the part of me that still wants a little credit. Christ provides what I need to be brought back to God. I come with my need and my trust.

Justification: being put right with God

Justification is the term I use for God declaring a person righteous on the basis of Christ’s work, received through faith. Righteous means being in the right before God. The picture is of a changed verdict, rather than a reward for becoming impressive enough.

Romans 5:1 connects justification with peace with God. Romans 8:1 speaks of freedom from condemnation for those who belong to Christ. Those promises matter on days when my emotions and my performance give me little reason for confidence.

The New Testament uses several further images for what God gives: new birth, new creation, adoption into a family, and the Holy Spirit’s presence as a pledge of what is to come. These describe related aspects of salvation. Forgiveness, belonging, new life, and future hope reach into the whole person.

In the Protestant understanding I hold, justification and sanctification are distinct but inseparable. Justification concerns our acceptance before God through Christ. Sanctification concerns God’s work of making us more like Jesus. Growth follows grace; it does not purchase it.

Catholic and Orthodox Christians explain these relationships differently, including the place of inward renewal within being put right with God. Compare the arguments about faith, grace, and a changed life →

How grace became personal for me

Looking back, I can see how much of my early understanding of Christianity was shaped by legalism. By that I mean treating rule-keeping as the measure of whether God would accept me. I often approached him with the sense that I was failing.

Over time, I began to recognize sin and self-reliance beneath that struggle. I could not save myself through morality or religious effort. Christ had to do what I could not.

A turning point came when I attended Nyack College for a second time. I had not arrived with a carefully arranged plan for how God would change me. One of the first changes came through an English class. Learning to study a text carefully changed the way I read Scripture. The Bible became personal to me in a fresh way.

Later, in Ron Walborn’s Divine Healing class, I arrived skeptical and guarded. I believed God could heal, but I did not expect him to act in immediate, personal ways. Through prayer, worship, and encounters I understood as the Holy Spirit’s work, that expectation began to change.

Those experiences did not replace Scripture as the foundation of my faith. They helped convince me that the Jesus I was studying was living and present. More deeply, I came to see that he was rescuing me from a life of striving.

His grace became something I was learning to live in. Christ has continued to meet me, correct me, and transform me. I do not mean that justification happens again and again. I mean that the grace by which I have been rescued continues to shape how I live.

What this changes about ministry

Because Christ met me with grace, I want to bring that same clarity and welcome to others. I want to speak of Jesus as the living Savior who forgives, restores, and gives new life.

This shapes how I preach, pray, help people grow, and invite them to faith. My calling is to boldly love and humbly lead people toward an obedient relationship with the Savior who has loved and redeemed me.

If you are exploring that invitation for yourself, begin with what it might mean to follow Jesus. You do not have to arrive with all the language already understood.